Sacramento County
Biographies
THOMAS R. JONES
The Jones family has been identified with the history of Wales
since its earliest days. From time to
time there were representatives who bade farewell to native land and crossed
the ocean to America in the hope of benefiting by the opportunities offered by
the new world. The branch of the family
represented by Thomas R. Jones of Sacramento
was established in the United States
and in California by his father,
Thomas, whose birth had occurred at the ancestral Welsh home on New Year’s Day
of 1817 and whose boyhood had been a period of privation and hardship destitute
of educational or other advantages.
Desirous of rising to a condition more prosperous and satisfactory, he
crossed the ocean in 1840 and sought employment in New York
City. For some
years he learned his livelihood as a hotel employee. Upon learning of the discovery of gold in California
he determined to come hither and accordingly made the trip via Mexico
in 1849 in company with a party of forty men, among them being J. McClatchy,
the late owner of the Sacramento Bee.
Arriving in Jackson, Amador county,
as early as July of 1849, Thomas Jones at once began to mine, an undertaking in
which he was successful, and he also engaged in other enterprises. From 1871 until his retirement in 1885 he
held the responsible position of United States
internal revenue collector. prominent in local politics, he served for many years as
chairman of the county central committee of the Republican party and enjoyed a
wide acquaintance among the representatives of that organization. His death occurred October 7, 1894, at the age of seventy-seven
years and nine months. During June of
1844 he married Miss Eleanor Owens in New York City. Four children blessed their union,
namely:
George W., Thomas R., Mary E., and Harry
W. The second of these, Thomas
R., was born at Jackson, Amador county, Cal.,
October 31, 1853, and
received such advantages as the public schools of that locality afforded. At the age of fifteen years he began to study
telegraphy and subsequent practice made him an expert in that art. During 1871 he came to Sacramento
as postmaster of the state assembly for the ses-sion
of that winter.
On the conclusion of his services in the interests of the
state in May, 1872, Mr. Jones entered the employ of the Central Pacific
Railroad Company as telegraph operator at Rockland. After a few months, in September of the same
year, he was transferred to Sacramento
and here he was appointed train dispatcher, a position of great responsibility,
which he filled with characteristic fidelity for about sixteen years. In recognition of his efficiency he was
promoted to be assistant superintendent in 1891 and continued as such for
twelve years, when, in 1903, he was chosen superintendent of the Tucson
division in Arizona. During November of 1904 he returned to Sacramento
to begin the duties of superintendent of the Sacramento
division, from which position he was transferred in August of 1907 to that of
special representative of the railroad at Sacramento,
which position he now fills. As a
railroad man he has exhibited painstaking attention to every duty and
intelligent comprehension of the magnitude of the tasks placed before the
railroads of the west. His steady rise
is due to the possession of these traits, supplementing the utmost tact and the
greatest efficiency.
At no time in his busy life has Mr. Jones allowed his
attention to be diverted from his chosen calling by extraneous affairs, yet he
has proved a public-spirited citizen, in touch with all enterprises for the
general upbuilding, and in politics he has been a
staunch Republican. Fraternally, he
holds membership with Sacramento Lodge No. 6, R. P. O. E., and Sacramento
Parlor No. 3, N. S. G. W., while socially he is a leading participant in the
functions of the Sutter Club. In Sacramento,
September 12, 1878, he
married Miss Elizabeth Lillian Poole, by whom he became the father of four
children, namely: Dr. C. B. Jones, a graduate physician and surgeon of
the University of California and the affiliated colleges of San Francisco, and
now a physician of Sacramento county;
Mrs. W. B. Jordan of Sacramento;
Mrs. A. D. Bechtel, whose husband
is a physician at Victoria, British
Columbia; and Miss Lesley H.
Transcribed by Sally Kaleta.
Source: Willis, William
L., History of Sacramento
County, California, Pages 507-508. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1913.
© 2005 Sally Kaleta.